With a target to go past ₹2,500-crore gross premium collection in the current financial year, Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company Ltd plans to sharpen its focus on increasing its health insurance and corporate verticals such as fire, transit and others.

Announcing this at a press conference , SS Gopalarathnam, Managing Director, said at present only 10 per cent of its business is from the commercial segment, while health insurance accounts for 11 per cent; and motor 67 per cent.

Q4 profit down

“In the next 4-5 years, we want to take health insurance portfolio to 25 per cent, and corporate to 20 per cent, and to bring down motor to around 50 per cent of our total business,” he said. Chola MS has closed the last quarter with a 20 per cent drop in net profit at ₹19 crore against ₹ 24 crore in the corresponding previous year period. The gross premium collected during the quarter went up to ₹ 539 crore, from ₹ 447 crore in the previous year period.

For the full year, it registered a net profit of ₹ 70 crore against ₹ 60 crore in the previous year. The gross premium collection was at ₹ 1,855 crore, a growth of 15 per cent over the previous year’s collection of ₹ 1,620 crore.

It posted an underwriting loss (premium income minus claims payout and expenses) of ₹ 18 crore as against an underwriting profit of ₹ 5.5 crore earned the year before.

“During the year 2013-14, natural calamities such as flood and cyclone increased the claims outgo and impacted the underwriting results,” he said. According to Gopalarathnam, last year Chola MS grew by 15 per cent.

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